WANTAGE — Monday it was base-running drills, batting practice and playing pepper. Today it will be a Group 2 semifinal in Bloomfield.

As the High Point softball team prepared Monday for today’s state semi against North 2, Group 2 champion Lyndhurst, the Wildcats were acutely aware that it could be their last practice day of the 2014 season. But it doesn’t have to be. A victory in today’s game at Clark’s Pond South in Bloomfield (4 p.m. start) would propel the ‘Cats into Saturday’s Group 2 championship game in Toms River.

“We would prefer that we make it all the way to Toms River, obviously,” High Point coach Barbara Fasano said during Monday’s practice at High Point High School, “but the philosophy, game after game, since Day 1 has been — take time, prepare for each game. That’s what we’re doing.”

High Point captured the North 1, Group 2 championship and boosted its record to 26-2 with Friday’s 1-0 home win over Lenape Valley. Since then, the suspense has been mounting.

“We have a good roll going,” Wildcats senior first baseman and co-captain Chelsea Eckert said. “We’re ready to move into the next game.”

“We’ve been really excited,” High Point senior pitcher and co-captain Ally Frei said. “We’re going to try really hard to go out and get the win.”

“We’ve been working really hard,” High Point junior shortstop Cassie O’Hern said. “I think we’re going to be ready for the game.”

“The hype is building,” Wildcats junior outfielder Autumn Smith said. “We’re definitely excited to keep on playing Tuesday, and hopefully, we’ll get to head a little bit farther.”

High Point has been on quite a pace the past two and a half weeks: begin the state tournament, play the Hunterdon Warren Sussex Tournament championship game, play a make-up regular-season game, resume the state tournament, play another make-up regular-season game, resume the state tournament to play a sectional semifinal, then play a sectional final. Win all those games.

So, Fasano and her coaching staff gave the team some chill days over the weekend.

“We let them enjoy their own time,” Fasano said, “their family time, their friend time. Just enjoy the win (over Lenape).”

Monday, though, it was time to practice again. “We came back here ready to work,” Frei said.

The games are dwindling to a precious few. Even if the Wildcats emerge victorious from today’s contest, they would have only one left — Saturday in Toms River — this season. For the entire team, it would mean the end of a memorable spring. For the seniors — Eckert, Frei, Satter, catcher Ally Curry and third baseman Chelsea Francavilla — it means the end of high school softball, making today’s game that much more crucial for that quintet. They don’t get Saturday if they can’t win today.

“Honestly, as a senior, I’m not thinking about it,” Satter said. “If I think this could be my last game, I’m not going to go out and play as well as I can. But if I just take it like the rest of the other games, I’m not going to psyche myself out.”

“We don’t really talk about it,” Frei said. “It’ll come up once in a while and we’ll say, ‘This can’t be our last game.’ But it’s always in the backs of our minds. We know we’ve got to win if we want to keep playing.”

“We know that any game can be our last game,” Eckert said. “We’re really pushing to do our best.”

“We’re playing everything for our seniors,” Smith said, “because they want it so bad.”

To keep those seniors wearing the High Point red and black, the Wildcats will have to climb past the Lyndhurst Golden Bears, who had a 22-7 record heading into Monday’s game against Immaculate Heart Academy. The Bears won their sectional crown with Friday’s 3-2 home victory over Madison. Junior Jennie Tellefsen was the winning pitcher, working all seven innings, striking out 11 and scattering six hits.

Before Monday’s game, Tellefsen had 278 strikeouts against just 27 walks this season, a strikeout-to-walk ratio of more than 10 to 1. “I’ve heard really good things about her,” Satter said.

Other than Tellefsen, the Wildcats don’t know many specifics about Lyndhurst.

“I tend to not really pay attention to that,” Smith said, “because you should just play the game instead of psyching yourself out or looking into other team’s stats.”

“We know a little bit (about Lyndhurst),” Fasano said. “But just the point (in the group semifinals) that we’re at with them, (we know) they’re a good team.”

“We’ve never played them before,” Satter said, “but no matter what, we’re not going to take them lightly. ... We know they can hit, they can field. And if they got here (to the group semifinals), it doesn’t matter what we’ve heard about them, they got here for a reason. So they’ve got to be a decent team.”

“I personally don’t know anything in particular about them,” Eckert said. “But I’m sure they’re going to be a good team, so we’ve just got to bring our A-game.”

“I think they’re just a good all-around team,” Frei said.

Lyndhurst did play a future High Point opponent, Kittatinny, on April 12, and lost 2-0 to the Cougars in a game that featured 10 strikeouts apiece from Tellefsen and Kittatinny’s Karley Bussow. High Point beat the Cougars, 2-0, in last Tuesday’s North 1, Group 2 semifinal. Those results don’t necessarily guarantee a Wildcat victory today, but do seem to bode well for them.

Both High Point and Lyndhurst earned their way into today’s showdown by snapping a tie in the sixth inning of their respective sectional championship games last Friday. High Point and Lenape Valley were scoreless in the bottom of the sixth, until Frei walloped a solo home run to center. Lyndhurst was tied with Madison, 2-2, in the sixth inning of their game, when Alyssa Pipon belted an RBI double that scored Christian Porta with the go-ahead run. Both hits held up as the difference-makers.

However each team got to today’s contest, they both want the same thing — a berth in Saturday’s Group 2 championship game in Toms River.

“That would be huge,” Frei said. “Senior year, I know me and all the other seniors, we don’t want (Tuesday) to be our last game. We want to go there (to Toms River) Saturday and we want to win it.”